AN: Sorry, this note is going to be long. But let's get it out of the way first. Some of it's kinda important. If nothing else, please at least read the warnings.
MAJOR WARNING: This was my attempt to write Rosalie as a rape victim visibly suffering from trauma. As such, this could cause TRIGGERS. And while I did do some research, I'm not sure it was enough, and if you are a rape victim and thinks it in any way diminishes, trivializes, or offensively misrepresents the experience, I am SO sorry, I will personally apologize a million times over, and if you tell me what was wrong, I will fix it or, if it's too major to fix, pull this down altogether. ALSO, there's suicidal thoughts, and Rosalie victim-blaming herself. So people, tread carefully.
Meyer says that you're stuck in the mindset from your turning, so this is me reimagining Rosalie to see how she could've become her seemingly untraumatized "canon" self. I think this is best described as an AU In Which I Try to Make Sense of Everything. Several ideas come from the excellent sporkings of the series over at Das Sporking. Sensory enhancement overwhelming you at first comes from The Secrets of the Immortal, Nicholas Flamel.
A note on style: I wrote this very weirdly, and among the weirdest parts is that occasionally it verges on stream-of-consciousness. Feel free to tell me how much I fail at the sorta-stream. Also, I didn't use quotations marks. I'm not sure how any of this happened.
OTHER WARNING: Aside from the aforementioned and canonical murders, while re-envisioning Rosalie, I also reinvented her relationship with Emmett. It is not healthy. The one between Esme and Carlisle is only hinted at, but I think it's probably even worse. I am absolutely not advocating either as a normal or standard romance. But that's what you get when you live in a creepy, creepy world. Thanks, Meyer.
She has been ruined.
That is the first thing Rosalie realizes when she wakes up. She feels irrevocably wrong. Everything is too sharp, too strong on her skin, the sensations burning into her, even though it's only the cloth and softness of a bed that she does not recall lying down on. Her throat burns. When she opens her eyes, she sees the tiniest bumps on the ceiling and faint cracks in the paint. All the detail makes her eyes ache. She has to shut them quickly before she throws up.
But most of all, there is a growing sense of something gnawing at her stomach. It tells her she is broken. She tries to remember why, and then memories come back.
She wants to throw up again.
The door opens and in comes a stranger dressed in a suit. Stranger. Another stranger. The last time she saw strangers . . .
Oh, good, you're awake, he says, ignoring her fear.
Who are you? Oh God, oh God, oh God. Could he be here to violate her as well? Fear and panic surge in her. She tries to scramble back, but back there's only a wall. No escape. She tries to get up and run but as soon as her legs brush the covers all the sensations are overwhelming again and she can't handle it and oh God how does she stop this?
He crosses the room and opens curtains. Sunlight bursts in like the Biblical flood of Noah, each ray a stream of fire. She screams in pain and then curls into a ball, because how can anyone's eyes withstand fire? Is this his way of preventing her from running?
I saved you, he answers, flashing a perfect white smile at her. He is handsome, with dark hair and a gentlemanly face, but she'd thought Royce was a gentleman too, so all his good looks and clear wealth mean nothing to her. Why is she here? Why isn't she back home? Even home, with her shallow father and materialistic, social-climbing mother, would be better than this. At least she knows they won't hurt her. If only because they don't care enough to hurt her.
Something inside her finally registers what he said. Saved her. She hunches over and clutches at her sides defensively. She'd hardly call this being saved. Everything hurts. Her senses are too much to handle. Her memories make her skin crawl and stomach revolt at the idea of anyone so much as touching her. She feels sick and dirty and she needs to wash herself clean.
Well, why did you get to decide? she wants to scream at him. What if I wanted to die?
She closes her eyes and thinks. And understands what he's done to her. Played God, that's what. He'd saved her without asking. Decided what to do with her himself. Took her away from everything she knew. And done something to her. None of it with her permission.
We haven't been introduced yet. I am Carlisle Cullen.
And she is someone who doesn't care.
When she doesn't respond to him out loud, Carlisle continues to talk. He tells her where they are. His house, in downstate New York. Rosalie wonders how far she is away from home, and if she could possibly find her way back. He tells her what time it is. Three days after she nearly died. Then he tells her why she's here. And it's a bombshell.
Carlisle explains to her with still-smiling face and never-faltering expression that he hopes his son will choose her to be his companion. The blood drains out of Rosalie's face. She'd been . . . chosen? The way you chose a commodity at the store?
The way Royce had chosen her?
She scrambles backwards again, still unused to moving with so much sensory information, but this time she manages to fight it down, knowing she has to flee. And then he is directly in front of her face, gripping a wrist loosely but his hand is iron and he's all smiles as he says where do you think you're going?
He's holding me down just like Royce did when he touched me like that and he's so strong I can't break free what am I going to do am I going to die this time
Rosalie, he says, and the sound of her name breaks her out of the spell. She starts and jolts backwards, her hand escaping his, and she relaxes a little. But only a little. There's still a threat edging his expression, and it's a little too dark for comfort.
She cannot deal with whatever was done to her body. He has clearly adjusted. He is stronger than her. So she must submit.
Again.
She fights down the screams and the tears and the panic and forces herself to relax. She will endure. She has to. How else is she supposed to get her revenge?
He smiles at her again, this time the smile of a satisfied predator. Go downstairs, he says. There you can meet the family.
Rosalie hurts too much to care about the implications of that.
. . .
Vampire.
That's what they tell her she is. A vampire.
It sounds ludicrous. Do you really think I'll fall for that? I'm not five, she says, but they assure her with serious faces no, it's true. And then remind her of her new senses and strength. Present her with a glass of dark red liquid.
Blood red, in fact.
She drains it all before she even realizes that it's actual, real blood.
The revulsion sinks in moments after she's finished drinking. What has she become? An animal? She starts to gag. She just drank blood. Blood. She stands up and shouts. What did you do to me, you BASTARDS?
Now, Rosalie, that's no way to talk for a proper young lady.
I just drank blood! She's trembling but not out of fear, her fists balled up, ready and willing to punch someone if the nausea doesn't take her first. You've made me a monster!
It was animal blood, Carlisle says, regarding her amusedly over a newspaper.
She pauses. Reconsiders. All right. Not as bad. Bad, but not as bad. But why didn't they tell her earlier?
They didn't have the chance.
They didn't think that this would be a problem.
They thought she already knew.
All her answers sound like excuses.
(Real answer: they didn't care)
. . .
She meets Edward after "breakfast." They drag her into a living room decorated all ostentatious nouveau riche before she can hide off somewhere to plan an escape, and she doesn't dare betray any more signs of resistance. She knows she's too unused to her changed body and has too little experience fighting to defeat them if they chase her.
They tell her where they're going on the way, and as soon as they explain, her mind starts filling in blanks. His fault, his fault. She shuts it down. Carlisle chose, not him. Edward is still innocent.
Their precious son turns out to be sitting on a couch, sprawled over it languidly like a cat, and looks up when she's led into the room. He's tall, with bronze-colored hair and marble-pale skin. Objectively, he's perfect.
She hates him immediately.
It's in the ways his eyes rake over her immediately, as if to assess her beauty (or lack thereof). It's in the arrogant twist to his lips. The bored look in his eyes.
He is empty. Empty, vain, and shallow.
By the way he looks at her, he feels the same. Well, he has the emptiness right, at least.
Rosalie shivers from that look, that implies she's something like meat, and immediately goes to shower.
She scrubs her skin raw.
. . .
Some days, Rosalie can't get out of bed. She feels hopeless and filthy but she's so broken she can't even muster up the willpower to try and clean herself she's worthless so worthless.
Esme comes to fetch her one of those times, and then all her depression turns to anger, and she throws a vase at her.
Carlisle lectures her for that. Rosalie tunes him out. His eyes stay on her the whole time, and does he desire her too? She sees Royce in him for a moment and leaps away, heart racing, mind scrambling for an escape, and he looks puzzled, but then shakes his head and continues.
He leaves, and she takes another shower. By the time she comes out, the water has gone cold.
She just wants to sleep again. Sink into the blissful unconsciousness and forget.
. . .
Her first escape attempt is simple. She walks out of the house and tries to find someone willing to bring her home. Her family is rich. She is still beautiful, so they will still want her. She is strong enough to defy any kidnapping attempt.
The moment she scents a human, the bloodlust surges, and she realizes that her plan won't work. She turns around and walks back before they come close enough that she no longer has the option.
At dinner that night, she asks casually how long these cravings will last. Oh, a year, Esme responds, equally casual, and Rosalie's heart drops.
. . .
It's true that as a human, Rosalie was obsessed with her beauty. Now she can't bring herself to care about it.
The rare moments she has anything but apathy towards her appearance, there is only loathing. Her beauty destroyed her. She wouldn't have been . . . violated that way if it weren't for her looks.
The only thing keeping her from taking a knife to her hair and skin is that her beauty is still a weapon, and can possibly buy passage home. That, and it's one of the few things she carried over from her old life.
Still, when Esme tries to ply her with delicate perfumes, fine clothes, expensive makeup, she accepts them and tries them on. She has no escape, not for now, at least, and if she must stay here, she can't afford their enmity.
The day after, she puts them away in a drawer or closet. She needs to wear clothes, but the makeup and perfume and jewelry never come out again.
(Must leave must escape go home keep planning run away run away)
. . .
She wakes up from a dream of grasping hands and drunken laughter, and all she can feel is the terror surging through her, how she fought and kicked but they held her down and she was helpless and too weak.
The nausea comes again. She screams. She screams and screams and screams but no one ever hears her and—
Then Carlisle is there, bending over her body and reaching for her with a hand that seems claw-like in the shadows. She tries to scream again because right now he is just like those bastards, but then he touches her, fingers so cold they almost burn, and her thoughts bleed into silence.
She remembers nothing from that night.
. . .
One day, Rosalie wakes up, and it's a perfectly normal day. The sun is shining. It's warm out. Her senses have adjusted. She goes down to their farcical version of a breakfast actually happy.
How are you feeling today? Carlisle asks, and then the switch flips. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU WANT TO KNOW? she shouts, and storms out of the kitchen, fuming. The nerve of him. When he was the one who left her like this!
The look on his face had been almost predatory, and it's all she can do to avoid thinking of Royce. She takes another shower.
. . .
With no one else to reassure her, Rosalie turns to religion.
It's a comfort. It promises her that someone still care. It gives her faith that she'll make it through until she can run. Someone will protect her. Guide her.
It's a curse. It tells her that all her misery happened for a reason. She doesn't care about that reason.
. . .
Her first kill is out of hatred and purpose.
She is both ashamed and proud to say it. Shamed that she would do such a thing, but proud that her kills at least were not as senseless as the others'. She does not kill random people. No, her first kills were the bastards.
She tracked them down easily enough using Carlisle's resources, the publicity of high society, and their own attention-seeking natures. She hates that she needed to use his help but consoles herself by repeating over and over again that she's earned it. Carlisle finished stealing her life away. The least he owed her was finding the ones who started the process.
When she confronted him in the streets, the first thing he said was, You're more beautiful than ever, in a wondering voice.
Something in Rosalie clenched and went red red red and she tore out his throat for that.
His companions screamed and shouted, called her filthy names, and then she tore out their throats as well, because they had no right what about her screams and pain they ignored her and left her to die and she hated them so so much.
When she calmed down a little they were all dead the streets seemed to be running red with blood and she was standing there, breathing hard, hands curled loosely into fists and resting on her legs. Her stomach turned, and she staggered away before anyone else got there. Please, oh God, don't let a child be the one to find this, she prayed. But she couldn't stand another moment near them, even their dead bodies, so she could not bring herself to dispose of them safely so no one would ever find them.
And so now she's here. Sitting in her room (prison, her mind whispers) five showers later in Carlisle's house. Thinking.
She breathes in and out. In, out. Calm, she instructs herself. They more than deserved it. And she can only hope she spared more women from being victimized by him.
Still, she should not have done that. First commandment. Thou shalt not kill.
She kneels down. Prays for forgiveness. Repents and says her Ave Marias.
(When she saw the blood pooling in the street, it sang to her, but the nausea started before she could drink it, and then she fought it and fought it and left, because she could not, would not taint herself with their evil in her veins. She refuses to be like them)
. . .
Rosalie is functional, most of the time. She deals. Gets up, stares into the mirror, goes downstairs once she's ready. Keeps calm. She still takes too many showers. Feels nauseous sometimes. Shouts at the Cullens randomly. And occasionally, she sees something that makes her think of Royce the memories come back and she can't handle things for a moment. But she works through it. She has no choice.
Sometimes, though, she just drifts through life. The sorrow hangs onto her like a cloud, damp and ever-present, and she goes around with it hanging over her, casting dark shadows over everything she does. It's impossible to escape. She runs away and it follows. She's like that character from a children's book. Eeyore, she thinks his name is.
A lot of the time, when the cloud comes, she doesn't even have the willpower to resist it. She just shuts herself in her room and tries to cry. The tears don't come, of course.
That night, she will dream again. That night, Carlisle will come again and clean her mind with cold hands. Rinse and repeat.
That's the way the story goes.
. . .
Even after she's killed them, she still dreams. Still freezes when she's reminded of Royce. Still can't stop feeling dirty.
At first, she thinks it might be a side effect from being a newborn, somehow. Trapping the memories of around her transformation. But then the year passes, it's not getting any better at all, and she asks Carlisle if he has an explanation. She can't run away if she keeps suffering panic attacks like this.
He does.
He sits her down in his study and explains calmly, like he's not shattering her world, that a vampire is frozen in the state when they were transformed. Not just physically, but mentally.
I'll let this sink in, he says, then leaves her sitting there, white-faced and nails digging into her legs. Some part of her dully notes she must be clutching quite hard for the them to nearly penetrate her skin.
You did this to me you knew this would happen and I'd be stuck like this but you did it anyways I'm trapped angry and depressed and I'll be like this forever no matter how hard I try I'll never recover and you knew you knew but you did this to me anyways without asking without telling you hurt me all so you could get Edward a maybe mate why why why
Rosalie goes to bed that night and dreams again. Only, this time it's Carlisle who haunts them.
. . .
There is still one thing Rosalie uses a mirror for.
Every day, when she gets up, she stands in front of it and repeats her mantra. I'm alright, I'm alright. Looks into her unfamiliar eyes and repeats it until her brain starts questioning the syllables.
One day, Esme catches her and smiles fondly. Rosalie realizes that means Esme thinks she's admiring herself. Still vain.
What does Esme know? she thinks bitterly. She can never be vain again.
I'm alright, I'm alright, I'm alright.
If she keeps it up, maybe she'll internalize it enough to make it come true.
I'm alright, I'm alright, I'm alright.
(Deep down, she knows that she'll never be alright, not after what Carlisle told her. But she keeps it up anyways, for the faint sliver of hope. If she doesn't have that hope, she doesn't know how she'll make it)
. . .
Once the year is over, she tries to go outside. Maybe she'll never be rid of the panic attacks, but she can pass them off as something else. She needs to readjust to human society. That's a must.
It is much, much worse than she thought.
She'd forgotten how the men stare at her and the jealous whispers and now she can't help thinking, "Are they going to attack me too?" And she knows that she's far stronger, and she'll never be that weak again, but the thoughts come and she's terrified feels like a victim again she sees Royce leering everywhere is a threat she's not safe no matter where she goes
Carlisle touches her with those cold hands and the thoughts go away before she can protest. She lets him lead her back obediently to the house.
. . .
She once heard someone say Carlisle's most prominent trait is his compassion.
Compassionate don't make me laugh, he stole me away without asking and turned me into a monster even he thinks vampires are monsters and yet he did it to me anyways what kind of compassionate man does that—
Don't you agree? he asks her, and he's a vampire as well; she can't afford to offend him, especially if he tells Carlisle, so she forces a long-practiced smile onto her face (being a debutante comes in handy, she thinks) and says, Of course. Why wouldn't I?
He loves those humans too much, he says with a reproving sniff, and then turns back to conversation with Esme.
Later in her room, she sits down on her bed and does laugh. Laughs hysterically, for what feels like hours, because compassionate? Who was he kidding? And loving humans? Though, Carlisle certainly does say that, doesn't he.
He let his darling Edward wander off and feed on them anyways.
Edward came back, but God knows how many people died while he was sick of the animal diet. She'd tried to find him, but he vanished quickly and she couldn't stop him and there was no one else to warn, so people died because of her.
Edward says he only fed on people who were thinking evil thoughts.
Rosalie has some questions for him. For instance, what about crime novelists plotting to kill characters? Or people repressing violent urges (like them, in fact)? How are you so sure you never killed one of them?
One could argue that Carlisle is too compassionate to restrain Edward. She calls foul. If he truly cared about humans, he would deal with a sulking Edward rather than let him loose on them. His compassion towards all of humanity should outweigh his respect for his son's freedom.
If he loved humans, then Carlisle would not be creating more predators for them. Especially not for a reason as stupid as finding Edward a lover.
Carlisle was born the son of a pastor, she knows. And he believes in Heaven. Well, as he is right now, he will not be going there. Of that she is certain. Carlisle has blood on his hands. He turned them all knowing they would almost certainly kill people as a newborn. He turned them believing it would probably cost them their souls. Sometimes without asking, like with her. He is a sinner. And he shows no sign of repentance.
One of her greatest sins (aside from her first kills, her only kills) is that Rosalie has never managed to forgive him for turning her. Love the sinner, hate the sin, they say. She can't do the former.
Compassion, she spits out mockingly, and then laughs again.
If compassion is his strongest trait, then he must be completely empty inside. Which wouldn't surprise her, actually.
. . .
Her second attempt is similar to the first. She just walks outside one day when she has the energy and willpower to propel her feet forward. This time, though, she does not head for any road. She knows she can't handle humans yet, and thanks to Carlisle, maybe she never will. But she can't stand another moment in that house, she needs to move. She'll live in the woods if she must.
Carlisle meets her less than a mile away from the house. Nice try, he says, with that dark-edged smile. The smile widens and his eyes crinkle as he says, Now, why don't we go home.
She stands there in mute terror until he takes her hand, and she starts and yanks it away.
He walks back to the house, and she doesn't dare do anything but follow him.
. . .
Rosalie has contemplated suicide, before.
Not all the time. But when things get very, very rough, when Carlisle's taken away her mind with his hands, and she wakes up terrified and confused, suffers more panic, when no one understands . . . yeah. She thinks about it.
There are a few things that stop her.
The first is method. Her skin is too hard to slit her wrists or stab her heart. She does not have enough access to fire for immolation. The same problem applies to poison.
The second is her faith. She has too much of it. She does not wish eternal damnation.
Really, it's the faith part that stops her.
. . .
Rosalie sees Esme's mask crack exactly once.
She's sitting in the kitchen, watching Esme plan renovations to the house. Esme is humming some old love song, ever the happy housewife, as she matches color swatches or God-knows-what to furniture in the catalogue.
Then she flips the page and there's an advertisement of a smiling family, complete with sound-asleep baby in the mother's arms.
Esme's face goes blank.
Very slowly, she rises from the chair and turns away. Rosalie catches a glimpse of her expression, features dark with pain. She buries her face in her hands like the classic image of a woman weeping.
Even in sorrow she is more like someone out of a storybook than a real person.
Then she lifts her head, expression carefully blank again, and picks up the catalogue. She sits down and immediately resumes her plans. Pointedly avoiding the page with the family.
Esme never speaks about the incident. Rosalie never asks.
. . .
She's walking down the woods in Tennessee. It's a beautiful day and that doesn't change when she chances upon the bear that leads her to Emmett with his dying and bleeding body.
—the sky is blue, and that is the only thing she can see, lying on the concrete broken and waiting to die. And she's so desperate; she feels dirty and unclean and wants death to hurry up and end it all, but she also just wants to be clean again—
She bends down and whispers to him. Do you want to be fixed? He nods weakly and something burns in her the way hot tears would feel running down her cheeks. Maybe she can't cry, but she still remembers that feeling. And every part of her aches, because all she wants to do is to be able to fix him.
The next thing she knows, she's carrying him and standing in front of Carlisle. Please. Save him, comes the words out of her mouth, because he is broken too, but he isn't dirty, like she was, and she'll do anything to prevent someone else from staying broken. Even ask Carlisle for help.
She remembers too late the killing and hurting and half-life that follows and then whirls around and asks him to stop.
Too late.
. . .
Things go much worse for Emmett than they did for her.
His transformation lasts five days, and she can hear him screaming throughout until his throat is too hoarse to keep screaming. Carlisle gives him medicine. It doesn't help much.
Rosalie herself only remembers an endless daze of pain, but the memory is nearly gone now, like a dream, so she doesn't know what she can do to help him. She tries to stay by his side, offer a cool towel and constant, though unfamiliar face if nothing else. He is her responsibility. She is going to help him get through this.
The day after his transformation completes, he breaks out of the house and murders three campers before anyone notices. Two of them are just children.
Rosalie is the one who finds the bodies, and a distraught Emmett, staring at his hands uselessly. It's okay, she tells him, and holds him close, tucking his head inside her chest like he is the child she longs for. It's okay. No matter what, I'll be here with you.
But as it turns out, his senses are better than hers. A week later, he detects some hikers no one else even notices and kills them too.
. . .
Emmett's killed five more people before the year is over. But he still repents and mourns them, so Rosalie comforts him after she buries the bodies as respectfully as she can, does her best to put names to the faces and stories (she sneaks into town and listens so very carefully, grief wrenching her heart as she hears what kind of life Emmett has stolen) to the gravestones. And then she prays. For the victims. For Emmett.
For herself.
. . .
A year after his turning, Emmett asks her to marry him.
Yes Emmett I say yes so stay with me is it Love? Maybe I don't know but please just stay you're the only one I have in this hellhole my light in the dark and
She cannot express all that. So she just says yes.
Truthfully, Rosalie has never even considered the idea. But Emmett needs her, and she needs him. He is the only one who cares, who still suffers when he kills someone by accident. The others merely shrug philosophically and advise them to relax. It's not important. Just a mistake. Just a human.
She always feels like punching them.
Emmett is her sole friend and ally, and she will not alienate him. Besides, she likes him a lot. He makes her laugh. He makes her smile. It might even be love. She doesn't know. The closest thing she's ever had to a romance is . . . Royce.
. . .
The night of their wedding, the Cullens leave her and Emmett alone with knowing smiles. Have fun, Edward says, smirking.
Emmett looks at her. You don't want to, do you? he asks.
And Rosalie is so relieved because yes, even if it's Emmett, she doesn't think she can handle it. Her legs give out beneath her and she collapses to the floor and almost cries a little. Emmett holds her close, and she smiles at him through her veil of hair, thanks him and God silently that Emmett is there.
He smiles at her too. Are you all better? he asks, like a little boy.
Yeah. I am, Rosalie lies through her teeth. She'll never be all better. But Emmett doesn't have to know that. She'll let him think that he's the magic cure that fixed her.
. . .
Say, how would you like to live on your own? Carlisle says one day, soon after the wedding.
Rosalie can't quite believe her ears. Live on our . . . own?
He nods, a look of regal kindness on his face. Does he think he's a king? she thinks angrily. Then he explains, Yes, like most newlyweds, and all her anger vanishes. He stands up and starts gliding out of the room. I'll leave you to think about it.
Rosalie does think about it. And while she wants to say yes, she soon realizes that he'd be the one to choose the house, and he would still be monitoring her every movement. It'll never be true freedom. He might even have spies planted in the nearest town. She'll always fear his eyes on her, and it'll be like he's there staring at her twenty-four seven. She knows herself well enough by now to realize it'll feel like Royce's eyes that one time, only all the time. She cannot survive like that.
She closes her eyes. She can't tell Emmett about this. He won't understand. He still doesn't realize just how evil Carlisle is, or even the full realities of being a vampire. She has to be the one to take care of these decisions.
She goes to Carlisle and tells him no. By the way his eyes open wide, he's as surprised as she is.
He knows she hates this, she realizes. So much that he thinks she'd take any chance to leave.
She leaves before she shouts at him or tries to take it back.
(It feels a little like she cut her own rope while hanging off a cliff.)
. . .
The third attempt never makes it off the ground.
After one particularly Royce-like look from Edward, Rosalie showers furiously and begins to think. The nausea resurfaces, and she clutches at her stomach before retching uselessly. She cannot stay here any longer. She cannot.
She's just started planning what she needs to bring, and how she can possibly sneak Emmett out while managing his bloodlust when Carlisle calls for her. She goes into his study again (she hadn't been back since the day he told her the truth) and says, What?
Oh, nothing, he says, with that damn smile. Then he touches her, and she no longer remembers her plans.
She goes back into her room twenty minutes later and stares quizzically at the jewelry strewn over her bed. What on earth was that there for? She shrugs and puts it all away.
(Half an hour ago, Rosalie could've told you that she was going to sell them to raise funds for their escape. But half an hour ago Rosalie isn't there anymore, is she?)
. . .
Rosalie is selfish. Oh yes, she recognizes that. How could she not, after living with herself for this long?
She is selfish. She does not run. She tried twice, but made only cursory efforts. So she just stays and lives off the Cullens though she despises them and their ill-gotten gains.
She still contemplates leaving, sometimes. She can resist human blood without difficulty by now. But Emmett's control is still poor and it is not safe for them to live in places full of humans. She herself has no marketable skills.
That is, except for beauty. But the thought of marketing that as a commodity, inviting people to look at her for her looks and nothing more, makes her want to vomit the food she's now accepted she can't eat.
A lot of things in this life seem to do that to her.
So she sits and waits and prays and hopes. Hopes that one day, she'll find a way out of this parasitic life, and then she can begin to truly earn forgiveness for her sins.
. . .
Rosalie likes cars.
Not riding them, though she does enjoy that. It's working on them that she loves, taking them apart and putting them back together. Yes, it makes her dirty, but it's a good kind of dirt. Real, solid, something that can be washed away in her many showers. Something that gives her good reason to shower, in fact.
There are a lot of other reasons she likes fixing cars. For one, it makes her feel in control, and she needs that in this chaotic world, when she's permanently trapped in the mindset of a girl who spent her last moments subject to other people's control. Still is under others' control. Also, car engines are complex and they have to be fixed carefully. It makes her feel accomplished.
It is very unfeminine.
It's the exact opposite of what Royce wanted out of her.
She realizes she shouldn't let him dictate her preferences, but she doesn't really care.
. . .
Rosalie is still the only one in the Cullen coven (if she can even be called a member) who has entirely abstained from human blood.
Other vampires think her willpower is inhumane (she isn't human, it's true), but it's very simple. She has two reasons. The first is the best: she refuses to be a monster. Those are people. She will not take them away from their families. She will not make them victims. She knows the feeling all too well.
The other is pettier. She hates the thought of becoming like the Cullens. She hates their emptiness, their true apathy to anyone who isn't them, their veneer of kindness so easily worn thin. So she refuses to sink to their level. She refuses to be someone who will discard her claimed moral principles as soon as it becomes a little inconvenient.
. . .
Dear Lord in Heaven please save Emmett heal my broken spirit. Thou art my shepherd so I may lie in green pastures thou restoreth me and though I live in the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil so please protect us guide me. Forgive me.
. . .
Rosalie hates her life.
Emmett is still the only bearable part about it. He's getting better at control, slowly, and she prays someday it'll be enough for them to survive in society. He'll be her crutch whenever she falls and she'll make sure he doesn't kill anyone and take care of him like she always does. It'll be good. Not perfect, but Royce and Carlisle took that option away.
Her only hope of survival is still to run. And she wants to so desperately. She wants to run to the other side of the world, flee this mess of a life with Emmett, but Carlisle can always tell and he wipes away the thoughts with his clean touch (cold, so cold) every time.
And slowly, little by little, Rosalie Hale begins to slip away.
Both the canon Cullens and the ones in this fic deserve a thousand vases thrown at them, and a whole lot more. This stops just as Rosalie is losing her original personality, and my idea of how they finished the job . . . is not pleasant.
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